An instrument capable of being used as a rate gyroscope and accelerometer multisensor is conceptually described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,959,382. The device can be used to measure rotation rate about two orthogonal axes, and accelerations along all three axes. Two such devices thus can be configured as a 6 DOF inertial instrument.
In order to make this multisensor a commercially viable product, it is necessary to use mass production techniques. However, currently used MEMS techniques are adapted for production of micro instruments. The angular momentums that can be developed with the micro vibrating members of Coriolis force gyroscopes limit the performance of inertial instruments made by such techniques.